Thursday, August 21, 2003

New arms-deal claim as Fakie defends report

As Auditor-General Shauket Fakie defended the final report of the arms deal investigation before Parliament on Wednesday, a new allegation emerged of irregularities in the awarding of sub-contracts.

Briefing the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), the AG maintained that media claims of omissions and "doctoring" in the final report were unfounded, and impugned the dignity of his office.

He, again, called on the watchdog committee to protect the integrity of his office.

Fakie said the draft and final reports on the probe into the multi-billion rand deal differed only in style and format, and that the executive did not, in any way, influence the content of the report.

"I want to state categorically that due process was followed and that no changes were made to the report based on pressure from the president or the executive," he said.

The deal was investigated by the AG, the Public Protector and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, who found no evidence of unlawful conduct by the state.

Scopa chairman Francois Beukman said the committee would evaluate the AG's responses, as well as a legal opinion received regarding the media allegations, before presenting a resolution to the House.

The legal opinion, commissioned by Beukman, found that claims that the final report was doctored were not unsubstantiated.

Source: Polity.org

Interim Liberian Government Head Named

Liberia's warring parties chose a mild-mannered and politically obscure businessman today to lead an interim government until 2005. Delegates from the government and two rebel factions, meeting in Accra, Ghana, chose Charles Gyude Bryant, 54, who is an Episcopal leader, a dealer in heavy equipment and the head of a minor political faction, the Liberian Action Party.

Under the accord, the chairman of the interim government -- the title will be chairman, not president -- had to be an outsider unaligned with the three warring parties. "I see myself as a healer," Mr. Bryant said in a telephone interview. "I see myself as neutral. I side with no group."

Liberia has been in almost constant conflict for 14 years, since the last president, Charles G. Taylor, a former warlord who left last week for exile in Nigeria, began fighting his way to power in 1989. Mr. Taylor's immediate successor, his vice president, Moses Blah, will resign in October.

The interim government led by Mr. Bryant is to try to help hold Liberia together until elections in October 2005. Mr. Bryant's selection came as a surprise to many diplomats and foreign officials, and to many Liberians. Many had expected the chairmanship to go to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 64, a former international banker and senior United Nations official who had led the candidates submitted by the government's negotiators to the rebel parties for their approval. But some diplomats cited last-minute maneuvering by Mr. Taylor's loyalists to block Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, who lost to Mr. Taylor in the last election Liberia held, in 1997. She said in an interview today that she would back Mr. Bryant.

Several of the Liberian delegates were injured this afternoon when the Ghana Air Force plane meant to carry them home failed to take off and its undercarriage collapsed, airport officials said. The mishap did not seriously injure any of the 44 passengers, the officials said, but it closed Accra's international airport.

In Monrovia, aid groups carefully began shipping some food into the countryside today. Fighting is continuing between government and rebel forces within 50 or 60 miles of Monrovia, despite a cease-fire. On Friday, more than 200 soldiers from Ghana are to join a West African peacekeeping force of nearly 1,000 troops, overwhelmingly from Nigeria. By October the force is to number 3,250, and the mission is to be turned over to the United Nations.

The United Nations envoy for Liberia, Jacques Klein, an American diplomat, said he would seek a mandate from the Security Council for up to 15,000 troops from all over the world to help secure the countryside so aid can reach a starving and war-weary population. There is also talk in Monrovia of a formal request to the United States to help train a Liberian army that was undermined and corrupted during Mr. Taylor's presidency.

Source: New York Times

Monday, August 11, 2003

What the U.S. Owes Liberia

This is an article by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

When Liberians got their first chance to vote in multiparty elections, old women walked from their villages in the scorching heat to stand in long lines at the polling places. My party's symbol at the time was the rooster, and I remember the crowds lining the road to cluck and flap their elbows as a sign of support. Anyone who saw their enthusiasm, like me, could have no doubt that Liberians yearn for democracy.

That was 1985. Sadly, the military stuffed ballot boxes and burned ballots, and Samuel Doe, a sergeant who had seized power in a 1980 coup, declared himself the winner. Liberians' hopes were dashed by American recognition of the results. It is hard to imagine that Chester Crocker, the Reagan administration's assistant secretary of state for African affairs, was not being deeply ironic when he praised Doe at the time for claiming only 51 percent of the vote. It was, he said, "unheard of in the rest of Africa, where incumbent rulers normally claim victories of 95 to 100 percent."

I have been pondering that betrayal recently as I attend peace talks for my troubled country here in Accra. Founded by emancipated American slaves in 1847 as a beacon of democracy for Africa, Liberia has degenerated into a violent free-for-all. As the battle rages for our capital, Monrovia, politics has been reduced to an extended street fight among gun-toting boys. Had the United States respected the will of Liberia's voters in 1985, we would not be in the desperate straits we are today. The failure to challenge Doe's electoral fraud discredited the democratic process and paved the way for an increasingly brutal competition for power.

But we can still dare to hope. President Charles Taylor, who displays an almost psychopathic will to power and has been indicted by a United Nations-backed tribunal for war crimes in Sierra Leone, says he will step down from office today. West African states have sent peacekeepers and the United States is considering a military role. The peace talks include not just the government and the two rebel factions, but also 18 political parties and five civil society organizations.

After six frustrating weeks in Accra, I can say that the peace talks are flawed and unstructured. The process is under the direction of a mediation team from the Economic Community of West African States, and meetings take place haphazardly in ad hoc groups, with only the occasional plenary. Yet I remain optimistic that an agreement will emerge on a future transitional government. I have to, because the talks are our only way out.

Unfortunately, the United States has steadily downgraded its diplomatic presence at the Accra discussions and is now represented by a relatively junior official. This is a mistake. As the Bush administration should already have learned in Iraq, military intervention is often the easy part. The political process that follows -- call it ''nation building'' if you will -- can be much tougher.

The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, recently appointed Jacques Klein as his special representative for Liberia. Because he is a former United States Foreign Service officer and a retired major general in the United States Air Force, he is seen among the Liberian parties as a virtual American envoy. Senior State Department officials are also paying increasingly frequent visits. But that is not good enough. The Bush administration should immediately dispatch a full-scale mediation team to Accra to see the process through.

If the administration does not get the politics right, any military intervention will be doomed to failure. Up to now, Washington's policy has been largely reactive. Liberia has fundamental problems to tackle if it is ever to live up to its founders' dreams of freedom and political participation. First, we need to restore hope and confidence to people subjected to despair, particularly to the thousands of young boys and girls who have been press-ganged into combat. Then we need to rebuild our institutions to ensure accountability and transparency; restructure the economic system so that it is no longer dominated by a small elite; conduct a national dialogue; and then hold elections that bring to an end our tragic tradition of rule by strongmen.

We need Washington's help to construct a credible transitional government that is interested in more than its own greed. After the betrayal of 1985, the United States owes us that much.

Source: New York Times

LEADER OF LIBERIA SURRENDERS POWER AND ENTERS EXILE

Charles G. Taylor, a star player in this country's 14 years of sporadic civil war, resigned from the presidency today and left his country for exile in Nigeria. "History will be kind to me," Mr. Taylor said, addressing the crowd in a sweltering second-floor room inside the Executive Mansion that had been packed for the ceremony with Liberian politicians, three African heads of state and foreign journalists. "I have accepted this role as the sacrificial lamb."

Sounding alternately bombastic, chipper and defiant, Mr. Taylor, 55, as usual likened himself to Jesus, blamed international forces for his downfall and challenged the United States in particular to step in, now that he had done his part. President Bush called on Mr. Taylor to leave Liberia more than two months ago and made his exit a condition for any American involvement in peacekeeping here.

Dressed in white, Mr. Taylor handed over the presidency to his longtime ally and vice president, Moses Z. Blah. Mr. Blah will steer the country until a new transitional government takes over in mid-October, President John Kufuor of Ghana announced today.

Mr. Taylor, accused of spreading conflict across the region, has been under a United Nations arms embargo and has been charged with playing a role in the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. "I want to thank Mr. Bush, even though we have had some disagreements," Mr. Taylor said, adding that he was confident that as a Christian, Mr. Bush would soon see the truth. "He's been misled," he offered. "God will reveal the truth to him."

The White House, under competing pressure for and against intervention to restore security to this crushed nation founded by Americans 150 years ago, has yet to decide to what extent it will engage in Liberia. Three American warships appeared on the horizon here today, apparently more for show than anything else at the moment. Two helicopters hovered from a warship to ferry supplies to the American Embassy this afternoon. "Today's departure of Charles Taylor from Liberia is an important step toward a better future for the Liberian people," Mr. Bush said in remarks this afternoon in Aurora, Colo. "The United States will work with the Liberian people and with the international community to achieve a lasting peace after more than a decade of turmoil and suffering."

It was not clear when the Americans, or the West African peacekeepers who are already on the ground here, would secure the vital Free Port of Monrovia to open the lifeline for food and fuel to the rest of the city. The port is in the hands of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, a rebel group. In Washington this afternoon, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the commander of the Marine Expeditionary Unit off Liberia's coast would come ashore, probably on Tuesday, to discuss how to assist in getting aid supplies into the port. "They have agreed to leave upon a turnover," Mr. Powell said of the rebels, adding that the West African mission in Liberia "will be in the lead." "The United States is there to see how we can assist them," he said.

Monrovians rushed to the beach at the first sight of the American ships late this afternoon. They stared out at the sea, anxious and hopeful. "We eat something now," said an optimistic Koko Wreh, 40, a resident of the rebel-held side of the city who was seeking shelter in an overflowing building on the government side. "I'm tired of fighting," said Johnson B. Sulonteh, 20, a government soldier sitting on sandbags near the beach. "I'm ready to go back to school."

Peace talks between government and two rebel factions have been under way in Ghana's capital, Accra, for more than two months. "The war in Liberia has ended," said Mr. Kufuor, the Ghanian president. Mr. Kufuor, who currently leads the regional bloc known as the Economic Community of West African States, escorted Mr. Taylor and his family to Nigeria this afternoon. Waving a white handkerchief to a crowd that rushed onto the tarmac to wave and weep, Mr. Taylor boarded a Nigerian government jet. West African officials said he was bound for the capital, Abuja. The Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, had offered Mr. Taylor a safe haven.

The first of 3,250 West African troops have begun arriving in Monrovia, but so far have done little more than erect checkpoints near the Executive Mansion. A United Nations peacekeeping force is expected to take over this fall. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, at the handover ceremony today, pledged to contribute troops. "It has indeed been a shameful thing that as Africans, we have killed ourselves for such a long time"' he said. "It is indeed time this war should come to an end."

Mr. Taylor's exit, while it closes one page in Liberia's sad history, also paves the way for new challenges. The warring parties must agree on an interim government before elections can be held. The port must be opened and desperately needed aid delivered. Soldiers on both sides must be offered reasons not to pick up their guns again. Before anything, the fighters who still control their patches of the city, on opposite sides of a set of strategic bridges, must be told what to do. Confusion reigned today after Mr. Taylor's resignation, as rebels in Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, known as L.U.R.D., pranced on their part of what is called the New Bridge, and began taunting the government side's chief. Shots were fired in the air. Then, throngs of civilians from both sides tried to press through, meeting again midway, only to driven back by the gun-toting youths who rule each side. Neither side had agreed to open up the bridges.

A commander on the government side, Gus Menwon, said he was awaiting orders. His men were asking him who would take care of them now. Asked if reconciliation was possible, he first waxed optimistic, saying many fighters on the other side were his friends. But then, he added, "It's hard to trust human beings." Shots were fired in the air jubilantly this afternoon, after news came of Mr. Taylor's exit. Around sundown, chaos erupted for a little while, as rebel fighters started shooting in the air to blow off steam, witnesses said. Apparently, two of their men had been executed for killing civilians. "For us in L.U.R.D., the war is over," said the rebels' secretary general for civilian administration, Sekou Fofana.

The rebels had been rankled by the choice of Mr. Blah as president, preferring someone they considered more neutral. Today, Mr. Blah, 56, reiterated his invitation to the rebels to join the interim government. "Let the nation begin to heal," Mr. Blah said. "Let all of us unite as one people and work to peace."

Source: New York Times

Friday, August 8, 2003

R100m disappears from courts

A probe has been set up into about R100m suspected to have been stolen or mismanaged in a number of magistrates courts allegedly by justice department officials, the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) said on Friday. SIU head Willie Hofmeyr said the investigation would cover at least 40 courts and a bulk of these were in the rural parts of Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. "Magistrates, prosecutors and court clerks are among officials that we will be investigating," he told Sapa.

The R100m was part of a R1.5bn held in trust by the State for people to receive child maintenance through the courts and those who pay bail and traffic fines. Hofmeyr said the unit did not suspecting corruption at present because the money could have been maladministered, or in some instances just unaccounted for because of poor financial records. He said the funds could have been spent legitimately, but the SIU wanted records to this effect. He said the SIU instituted the investigation recently after the Department of Justice approached it six months ago about allegations of gross financial irregularities at courts. "We have been communicating with the department in this regard since then and we believe these allegations warrant an investigation. "So far preliminary investigations point to syndicates operating in the major cities, while bad auditing and lack of internal controls in rural areas make it easy for graft and unscrupulous officials to operate."

Hofmeyr said he was assembling a team of 25 specialist investigators, lawyers and forensic auditors. The team is scheduled to start work on September 1. "We want to get under way as soon as possible. The department has also offered us about R6m for the operation," he said. "We will be recruiting from the elite Scorpions detective unit, police and auditing firms. These people will have to resign from their current positions to concentrate fully on this probe." The investigation was expected to take about two years.

Departmental spokesperson Paul Setsetse said the probe followed a proclamation signed by President Thabo Mbeki three weeks ago. The upcoming SIU probe was preceeded by the department's internal investigation into the matter, which took place two year ago. "It took us a year to conclude our investigation because these irregularities started prior 1994 when the State used to allocate budgets to courts without monitoring them." Setsetse said currently, the department was in the process of appointing court managers to looks after funds given to courts. "We are taking responsibility away from our officials like magistrates and court clerks so that people with appropriate skills can take over the managing of these funds," he said.

Source: News 24